


The Monsters Within

by A_Fine_Piece



Series: A Thin Red Line [34]
Category: Bleach
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-25
Updated: 2015-08-25
Packaged: 2018-04-17 03:13:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4650084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Fine_Piece/pseuds/A_Fine_Piece
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ichigo deals with adjusting to the World of the Living. Hisana learns there is a price on her head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Monsters Within

Hisana feels safe in the 5 a.m. light. It is a rare feeling. Her fears rise in the summer air and evaporate in the sun's rays as the heavens catch fire. What a wonderful feeling swells inside her chest when she watches her worries burn away. A moment free from the thick chains of duty.

It has been a long while since she has felt so secure. Her love holds her; his arms are heavy and strong, and she sinks against his chest until it feels like they have melted, flesh into flesh. Inextricably bound.

Oh, how she has  _missed_ this.

Long days full of obligations drown her, leaving her to choke on cold fear and panic.

Their relationship has been reduced to measured gazes and brutal schedules. A glance here and a shared smile there has become their only intimacy.

So this moment, even if it is at the break of dawn, feels indulgent. And, indulge, she does.

The weight of her husband's body against hers, bathed in the tide of his breathing, penetrates her thick armor. Euphoria grips her upon feeling the steadiness of his heart, the way her body synchronizes to match his, and the intense feeling of security—the feeling that nothing could harm her, not while in her lover's arms—that her husband brings her.

Idly, her fingertips trace circles on his chest.

His skin feels so smooth, but there is the hardness of muscle if she presses deep enough. Thoughtless circles trail down his chest until he catches her hand in his own.

A smile spreads across her face as she watches his hand envelop hers, holding it in place against his abdomen.

She turns her head and rests her cheek against his chest. "Lord Byakuya," she murmurs, feeling caught up in a potent reverie. She searches his face; his stillness fascinates her at times. A hooded gaze and smooth lines sends her heart aflutter. Not a crease or a slope to give away his thoughts.

Gently, he places a hand against her head and runs his fingers through her long tresses. His eyes, though heavy, find hers, and the smallest trace of a smile thins his lips.

She turns her cheek into his hand and presses a kiss against the joint of his thumb. Her lips linger, wet and warm, against his skin, and she breathes him in, holding his scent deep in her lungs so that it may infuse her.

He strokes the contour of her cheek with his thumb before pulling her closer. His lips search hers. Deep kisses and wild heartbeats. His hands find her binds, loosen them, and adeptly free her from her thin layers of silk.

Between beats of breathless indulgence, Hisana inhales the fragrance of both her lover and the salty tang of the ocean as the heavy sea air wafts into their room.

Indeed, she only remembers where they are after the tumult.

They are not under the auspices of Kuchiki manor. In a rare moment of frustration, her husband decided rather capriciously to take a short holiday from his duties.

Initially, Hisana presumed that her husband had cleared this excursion with The Powers That Be, but, right then, she is beginning to question her prior assumption. Skin slick from exertion and hair tangling around his head, her husband looks like the portrait of reckless.

_The perfect kind of reckless._

With eyes set on the thatched roof of their lodging, Hisana smiles distantly to herself. She cannot deny feeling a small piece of liberation, knowing that her colleagues were toiling deep in the lungs of Soul Society while she was indulging her most hedonistic of desires.

It is unlike her.

It is unlike him.

But, sometimes, one needs to shed themselves of the usual, of the expected.

"How long?" she asks, focusing on the straws that weave in and out of one another in an intricate design.

His chest rises and falls for a few heartbeats before going still.

"Not much longer," he murmurs, voice thin but razor sharp.

Her smile fades and her gaze drops from the ceiling to the door. It is cracked open. A long rectangle of blue beckons her with promises of tranquility, fresh air, and the sound of crashing waves.

"Long enough," she murmurs slyly before sitting up.

Every muscle in her body implores her to sink back down into her husband's arms. Her nerves shoot crackling sensations of pain up and down her spine, and her heart stammers in her chest. Fitful starts, her whole damn body, but her mind knows better.

Reflexively, he reaches for her. His fingertips ghost across the small of her back, but she refuses her husband's unspoken offer to return to his warmth.

Instead, she shrugs on her robe and makes a hasty knot in her sash. "Come, milord," she says, eyes bright and smile wide. "Let's explore," and she offers him her hand.

He watches her for a cautious moment before accepting her invitation to leave the warm cocoon they created only the night before. Unquestioning, he takes her hand in his and follows her lead in silence.

When they emerge from their room, Hisana tilts her head and gazes upward.

The sky is the loveliest shade of blue, and it hangs like a promise over them.

It only takes a few seconds for her to lose the threads of her thoughts to that big, blue wonderful.

Byakuya doesn't seem to mind or notice. His gaze is steady, lingering as they begin their stroll toward the Seireitei. She can feel its heat, drawing a flush to her cheeks, and she lowers her head bashfully.

"Last night, you mentioned news about Sakuran," he begins, gently. His voice is tender, low. It reminds her of how much she has missed him the last few days.

Oh, how she has missed the warmth of his baritone, the way it soothes her tired, fraying nerves. Long days in the Chambers has deprived her of that and much more.

A knowing smile thins her lips, and she nods her head. "Yes, Sakuran," she says, catching a glimpse of her husband in the corner of her eye. His watchful stare is unyielding and ardent. "She was unwell when I knew of her," she begins, closing her eyes for a moment as her mind struggles to summon a mental picture of the oiran.

Oh, yes, Sakuran. She was beautiful . . . but . . . then, all of the oiran were beautiful. It was a requirement, after all.

Sakuran's beauty, however, was  _traditional._  She had long, willowy limbs that moved languidly through space and time, like a dancer. Her features were delicate, as if her face had been cast from porcelain. Her hair was black and fell in long cascades down her shoulders. She looked  _patrician_. Perhaps, technically, she was. While they were a minority, some of the girls came from disgraced families, or, worse, exile.

It would make a strange sort of sense if Aizen chose a disgraced noble as his oiran. Wasn't Aizen always chasing prestige? Always chasing something he could never obtain? Maybe that was the point. Maybe it has always been the point. Monsters—and Aizen definitely qualifies as a  _monster_ —cannot be satisfied; its lust consumes all. It is enveloping, like a void that can never be filled. Its heart is like a bottomless pit, always empty and black as ink.

"Unwell?" Byakuya echoes, as if he is trying to pull her from her sea of thoughts.

Hisana opens her eyes and tilts her head in time to catch one of her husband's gentle glances. "Yes," she tries again, "Sakuran was a spirited girl.  _Wild_  was the word they often used to describe her. The handful of times that I saw her I never detected anything  _wild_. Trapped? Perhaps. But we were all—" Hisana stops before she continues, stumbling over a familiar fault line.

It is always there, waiting under the surface to send a quake at the most inopportune moment.

Classism stretches as far as the eye can see in Soul Society. Its reach touches all.

Shinigami, noble, politician, peasant—the ways to classify one another is endless, and, most of the time, she and Byakuya talk around it.

At that moment, as she trips over her words, her heart skips a beat. It is the biggest fiction an oiran sells, that she is  _content_  with her station, that she  _chose_  this position like the Shinigami chooses his occupation. It's a lie. There is no choice for an oiran. It is a necessity. Most of Hisana's contemporaries were  _sold_  into the profession by husbands, fathers, or traffickers.

Hisana's story was no different.

Byakuya's gaze drifts to the sandy dunes dotting the footpath.

It wasn't an admonishment, Hisana wants desperately to explain. Her husband and his family partook in an enterprise that preyed on the disenfranchised, but not all of the women were like Sakuran, and not all of the men were like Aizen.

While Hisana felt trapped in the Pleasure Quarters, her tether was of a different kind. Her tether wasn't forced prostitution but  _guilt_  for abandoning her sister. By most standards, the Pleasure Quarters was an  _improvement_  from Inuzuri. There, sex came with status, food, shelter, education, clothes, and well-behaved company, not beatings and crushing poverty that followed on the heels of rape, which was all Inuzuri had to offer. However, expressing those sentiments would not ease her husband's conscience. The truth, unfortunately, proves too nuanced and ungratifying for them both.

Instead of tangled words, Hisana offers her husband physical tenderness, lacing her fingers through his as they continue their walk. When she feels the tension in his hand subside, she begins anew, mindful of her words. "Sakuran's  _wildness_ , however, soon began to escalate into  _madness_."

Byakuya's gaze, once rooted to the ground, lifts to search Hisana's face as he listens to her story.

"By most accounts, this descent into madness occurred shortly after taking Aizen as her patron. Her health fell into decline, and her confidents complained that Sakuran would speak in nonsense, as if she was becoming increasingly paranoid."

"What did she speak of?" Byakuya's thin brows knit together, and his features become still.

Hisana knows that look. "Monsters, milord."

His gray eyes squint, as if he is staring into the distance of his own mental landscape. "Monsters?"

Hisana nods her head. "She would speak of monsters that possessed the skill and keenness of Shinigami. No one believed her. At the time, they thought her mental decline was due to the marriage of a young lord whom she had professed to love. Then, one day, she was found hanging from the weeping sakura in the House's courtyard. The House covered up the suicide, as is apparently custom, and stated that she died of natural causes."

Hisana observes her husband's reaction for a brief moment. There is so much  _wrong_  with the account—morally, procedurally,  _legally_ —it appears that Byakuya is having some difficulty sorting through it.

"Sakuran began drawing pictures of her dreams, where the world was ruled by these monsters." An uneasy silence falls over them as Byakuya thinks.

Uncomfortable with the suffocating stillness that blossoms with each second, Hisana inhales a deep breath and powers through it. "I asked for all of Sakuran's personal effects to be packed and sent to the manor."

Byakuya nods, silently agreeing with his wife's instincts.

"What of these monsters, milord? Are they merely the shadows of a woman's tormented mind, or are they something else?"

It seems doubtful that Aizen would share his plans with an oiran. He was too careful for  _pillow talk_  to be a potential source of ruin.

Then, there was the curiosity that, at least as far as Hisana was concerned, Aizen was not interested in carnal pleasures. It was entirely possible that he and Sakuran never had sex.

So, if he was not interested in sex, then what was Aizen doing with Sakuran all that time? Practicing? Practicing what? His skills at psychologically decimating another?

An oiran would be a good choice in honing those skills, Hisana surmises. No one would believe her, and to go through the ranks to become an oiran requires a great deal of mental fortification. The girls who fail—and the numbers are legion—usually lack the spirit, not the beauty, to succeed.

"Milord is uncommonly quiet," Hisana observes as they begin across a small wooden bridge. When her words garner no response, she stops in the middle of the bridge. And, feeling the tension of her hand against his, Byakuya follows suit, but his thoughts are elsewhere, as if he is solving a riddle.

Facing him, Hisana smiles gently to herself. His eyes are on her, but he does not see what stands before him. Rarely is he so occupied in her presence, she muses as she admires his doggedness for a moment.

_If only…._

She doesn't finish the thought. It isn't fair to him.

"Perhaps we should return to the manor," she suggests, eying the fall of his silks. Dressed in plain blue robes, no signs of his rank or status, he is just the way she prefers: himself, free of responsibility. As much as she prefers them to the Shihakushō and white haori, Byakuya cannot assume his position as Captain of the Sixth without the vestment.

A gentle tug of his hand, and he follows, unquestioning. His mind continues its quiet occupation, and, for a spell, they walk the trail leading to the manor in a breezy sort of silence.

"I take it that the Twelfth is satisfied with the orb." Hisana's voice is soft, but assertive.

Byakuya lifts his head, and his eyes meet hers. "Yes."

Hisana nodded approvingly. At least the Twelfth is no longer making requests to  _examine_  Rukia. Apparently, the object of Aizen's desire will suffice in her place.

 _Although…._  Hisana's brows furrow as she considers the implications of her sister being selected for the dubious role of  _host_.

_Why Rukia? Why now? When did it happen? How did Aizen find out? Why does Aizen want the orb?_

The deluge of questions is endless, and Hisana worries that they will never know the truth. Not where Aizen and Urahara are concerned, at least.

"The Second no longer considers Rukia a person of interest," Byakuya states, his voice faint and thin.

_So no more details, which means…._

"Then Rukia is free to assume her post as your Second?" Her blood goes icy in her veins, and her heart thunders in her chest. She wasn't expecting fear to grip her so suddenly, and she stops for a moment to collect herself.

Attuned to his wife, Byakuya halts and turns. Her panic is plain to see. "Yes," he murmurs and squeezes her shoulder as a consolation.

He never speaks the words, but she hears his sentiments loud and clear.

Rukia is safe under his watch.

Her fingertips, trembling and cold, brush the tops of his knuckles, and she inhales a deep breath. The weight of her hand settles against his, ever firm and ever steady. "Of course," she responds to the unspoken promise lodged in his eyes.

She has no doubt he will protect Rukia.

Or, die trying.

* * *

Cheek cupped in hand. Elbows digging into the hard, smooth wood of the desktop. Ichigo stares. Thoughts evaporate like vapor in the humid summer that beckons him from beyond the window's glass.

The class? Ichigo thinks it's English, but it could be Japanese History or math for that matter. It's all beyond the point now. Now, that Ichigo measures time in intervals that don't revolve around childhood horror and loss.

 _Before and after Soul Society_.

It is so clear now. Everything. Even the childhood horror and loss. The monsters are real, true, but so are the heroes.

Nothing else seems to matter as much. Nothing is quite as satisfying enough. Food doesn't taste as flavorful. Even his favorite sonnets read quaint and uninspired.

Ichigo doesn't think he's the only one that feels this way, either. The others may hide it better. They may bury it down further, under more layers, but that doesn't change a thing. Not a single thing.

There has been a tectonic shift in their lives, the ripples of which have had a seismic effect, and they are now inextricably bound by two intervals.

 _Before and after Soul Society_.

He cannot get the summer's adventure out of his head. It is engrossing. It makes his blood race and his heart pound in a way that he has never known before and has not experienced since. It is an infection, and it has made its way to his blood.

Had he known the heady side effects would he have done it?

Without a doubt.

Staring deeply into the possibilities that exist beyond him—beyond the world that drapes over him like a worn blanket—he searches for glimmers of the unseen, glimmers of the world beneath the surface.

Ichigo has a sinking feeling that he has not even scratched the surface of what lies beyond the mortal coil of the World of the Living. And where is the girl that set this all into motion? Where is the catalyst of this grand discovery?

Nowhere within reach. Nowhere within sight. Nowhere at all.

Yet, every day, Ichigo learns something  _new_  or meets someone or something  _interesting_.

_Like that weirdo and his band of weirdos…._

Ichigo pivots his head on his chin, and he gives Ishida a sidelong glance. The Quincy has been eerily  _calm_  about this whole thing, but Ichigo senses a churning in his classmate's depths.

Then there is Orihime, who seems a little less kooky after what transpired. She is a little more quiet, a little more reserved, as if she has a secret that she is worried might escape her at any moment.

Chad remains stoic, likely the least affected by their adventure. Chad is dependable in that regard, like a rock.

Ichigo's attention drifts back to the window, back to the great, blue sky that hangs above them like a door to exciting places.

He'll return, he reassures himself.

_He must._

Instinctively, his fingers go stiff and splay.

 _That strange itch_ , he thinks to himself. He can't shake it. It feels like a stirring inside his head, like rats scurrying around his brain and gnawing on his nerves.

 _An itch he can't scratch_.

He tells himself that it's fine. Normal. It will go away. It is just a byproduct of returning to Karakura Town. It is just because he went to Soul Society.

The sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, however, belies the fact that he doesn't believe the bullshit that he's selling.

Something, somewhere went awry.

Ichigo traces the origin of this strange stirring, time-traveling back to when he first felt the vexing sensation of his psyche slowly beginning to fracture, to flake away.

 _Urahara_.

He squeezes his eyes shut, hoping that will stop the mental noise. When he reopens his eyes, he finds the teacher looming over his desk and tapping her foot. "Kurosaki," she says, growing impatient.

"Huh?"

"Aya runs with the ball, and Toto fetches the ball. This is what kind of sentence?"

_English, eh?_

Ichigo stares, eyes unfocused and brows furrowed.  _What were we learning?_

"Err!" she grumbles under her breath, "Ishida?" she asks, eyes wide and imploring.

"Compound."

"Good!"

 _What is wrong with me?_  Ichigo wonders as he stares into the lines stretching across his hand.

Then, it happens. The sensation that he knows so well, too well—the prickle of anticipation, the pounding of blood in his ears. Before he can put the breaks on his muscles, he is out of his chair and across the room.

He hears the teacher shriek his name, but he does not heed her shrill warning. Instead, he flies down the hallway and into the sticky, summer heat.

He doesn't know how far he's run. Far, he thinks, as he takes a quick survey of the area. All grass.

 _The park_ , he realizes as he turns to see if anyone is around. There are a few mothers with children milling around. A few college-aged students have laid out blankets and are reading. It is sparse, he thinks to himself.

_So why here?_

No one nearby has any significant amount of spiritual power or pressure. It is perfectly still. Perfectly ordinary.

"Kurosaki!"

_Inoue?_

Ichigo turns to find Inoue and Sado barreling toward him a distance away.

"It's nothing!" he calls, hoping to spare them the effort. "False alarm!"

Disappointment crests over him. His shoulders slump down, and, fighting back the urge to grimace in front of his comrades, Ichigo turns away to find himself an arm's length from a large, corpulent  _monster_.

Muscle memory saves him from physical contact with the hollow, and, hopping back, he examines the creature with a wide, probing gaze. He takes in every line, curve, and texture as if his processing power has gotten a much-needed upgrade. His thoughts race a mile-a-minute as he attempts to ascertain the hollow's attack pattern.

It stands a head taller than Ichigo, so it is smaller than most. It is a muddy-brown color, which gives it an appearance reminiscent to a toad. But its hide, which looks thick and tough, is covered with eyes.

"What?!" Before Ichigo can take the offensive, the creature falls to its bloodless demise before bursting into a thousand spirit particles.

Ichigo lifts his head and waits.

He has his suspicions, suspicions that are soon confirmed when he sees the figures that emerge from the particle cloud.

"Another scout," Ikkaku grouses, thumbing his nose and hoisting his sword over his shoulder.

"Ms. Kuchiki!" Inoue calls excitedly from behind Ichigo, and she gives a small nod of her head.

"Well, if it isn't Kurosaki," Renji announces in a cocky tenor, and he shoots Ichigo a smug glare. "Should've been quicker."

Ichigo prepares a snappy retort, but, before he can get the words out of his mouth, Rukia interrupts him. "Ichigo," she begins, lips set in a tight, thin line and voice terse. "Inoue," her voice and expression softens as she turns her gaze to Orihime.

_Oh, yeah._

It's not like Ichigo made a graceful departure from Soul Society.

_More like absconded…._

"So, what of these scouts?" Ichigo directs his question to the group, but his eyes are laser-focused on Rukia.

"Harmless, really," Yumichika murmurs quietly from behind Ikkaku.

"Kill them, don't kill them, they serve their purpose, either way," Rukia states, voice thin and pointed. "The defectors are surveilling the area."

"But why?" Orihime asks. Her voice sounds stale, almost muted, from where Ichigo stands.

Rukia's gaze drifts to Renji, who appears just as baffled as the high schoolers. Finding no help from her childhood comrade, Rukia turns to Orihime with only her unsubstantiated hypothesis to keep her company. "We don't know," she says, clearly settling.

Ichigo bets Rukia  _knows_ , or, at the very least, has a strong  _inkling_  why the defectors are sending scouts to Karakura Town. And, he'd take Rukia's  _inklings_  over the giant question mark that he has.

"Do we take them in now or later?" Ikkaku asks, digging his little finger into his ear and wiggling it deeper.

Ichigo frowns at the brute's lack of manners and consideration. "We're not going anywhere," Ichigo states stubbornly.

_We're not going to be yanked around like dogs on a leash._

Renji folds his arms against his chest and shoots Ichigo an irritated glance. "We'll see about that."

"We were sent just to keep an eye on things," Rukia reminds Renji.

"For now," he says, goading Ichigo with a self-satisfied grin.

Before Renji's words can take full effect, a loud crashing sound hits them like a thunderclap.

The ground moves in waves under their feet. The air becomes stifling. Hard to breathe now. Harder to move.

Ichigo feels leaden. The pressure crushes him. It downs Orihime and Sado. On their knees, like a prayer.

It sends him into hyperdrive. His protective instinct crashes over him, like a tsunami.

Sheer resolve—stubborn resolve—forces him up. The ligaments in his thighs crackle. The muscles in his legs buckle. But, he is upright by will alone.

He will stand for his friends. He will protect. He will shield. As long as he draws breath, he will defend.

The pressure rips him, but, before it can tear him asunder, he feels  _it_  begin to surface.  _It_. He doesn't have a name for  _it_ , not yet. He feels the pain. It is harrowing. It is cutting. It goes deep. Deeper still.

Ragged breaths and burning tendrils, he stands. Shattered. Fractured. Falling to pieces. It doesn't fucking matter, does it? A few feet ahead of him stands the target. A few feet behind him stands the goal.

Logic doesn't fucking matter, does it? Not as he is going full steam ahead.

Death.

Life.

Breath.

Heartbeats.

It's all irrelevant. Just as long as he saves what he needs to save.

Himself? Sado? Inoue?

Just as long as he protects. Just as long as he atones for the past, paying the toll for the future. That makes it better. Doesn't it?

His blade cuts deep. His blade tears asunder. Flashes of violence and speckles of death fall around him. He doesn't process it. He can't. He's been possessed. By what? He doesn't know. It's that scratching at his brain. It's the itch he can't scratch.

"Ichigo!"

He fades. The brown, the gray, and the black. It all feels the same. It keeps time with the screaming.

"Ichigo!"

"Ichigo!"

"Ichigo!"

He goes dark, darker, darkest.

 _No matter_ , the voices swirl in the pitch black of his mind.  _There will be another…._

Sometimes the monsters within overcome you.

Sometimes the monsters within drag you down.

And sometimes the monsters within don't let go.

* * *

Hisana's mood darkens. Nights spent negotiating budgets and contracts have left her spent. Exhaustion gnaws at her nerves, splitting them into fine wires. They spark and burn under her flesh, begging her to submit to their fiery demands.

Shaky arms bear the weight of her upper body as she climbs into the tub. Steam billows from the hot water, blinding her as she sinks into the liquid anodyne.

Resting her head against the wall of the tub, she inhales a few deep breaths and shuts her eyes. The warmth wraps around her and soothes her tired muscles. How long? she wonders. How long has it been since she has taken a moment for herself?

Too long.

Reflexively, she blinks her eyes open. A stinging sensation clouds her vision for a moment, and she shoots forward.

Something is awry. The air around her shoulders turns biting, nipping at the steamy flesh as she pulls her shoulders to her jaw.

"Who's there?" With wide eyes, she tries to see beyond the curtain of gray that rises up in thick wisps from the bathwater.

Before she repeats her question, she feels the chill of steel against her throat.

Still. Dark. Silence.

Hisana sits up, erect. Eyes set on the pillars that reach up and up and up. Her breath catches in her throat. The air she pulls is cold. It stings. She's sure that it will cut her, pierce her inners and ricochet until she has been torn into ribbons.

She doesn't dare sigh. She doesn't heave. She doesn't struggle.

She merely stares. Hardly breathing.

"Mrs. Kuchiki," a hiss in the dark sets the tone, tells her everything is decidedly  _not alright_.

Eyes narrow, like a wolf. She watches, reading the dimly lit bathing room, searching the shadows. Her heart pounds. It began as a stirring, a mere uptick in beat. But, now, it is a crescendo.

She can almost taste blood. The tang of copper, or, worse,  _steel_.

Time slows. Or she speeds up. As if she is quicker, smarter, stronger. But she isn't.

The blade at her throat tells her as much.

Shining silver glints in the candle light. She catches her reflection in the blade. Stoic. Her husband would be proud. Even caught unaware, she does not bend. She does not break. She would have broken years ago. Before she knew him. Her resolve now is ironclad.

A sharp breath pulls down her throat. The air is cold; it feels as if shards of ice have formed down her windpipe. She holds the air—the stinging, biting air—deep in her lungs. A misstep could cost her life, and she knows the order and the name. All she needs to do now is manage the risk.

Sister.

Wife.

Friend.

Benefactor.

Mother.

She is many things to many. The threads of a life best lived slips through her fingers, but she holds on. Hoping that the strings won't slip. She keeps the faith.

Deep, still breaths, now.

Even deeper as she feels the blade bury into her flesh.

Her heart thunders in her ears, and her blood runs icy. Yet, she possesses enough of her wits  _not_  to struggle. Indeed, one wrong move could tear her to ribbons, wet, crimson ribbons.

"Lady Kuchiki," the voice is low, unfamiliar, and undeniably male. His breath burns hot against her ear, and she rips through her mental inventory to apprehend the identity of her assailant.

"Please," she murmurs, trying her level best not to move a muscle.

Without warning, the unknown male turns his blade, a curved dagger. The sting of the metal's broad side slides up her cheek, where he toys with the tender, bare flesh.

She represses the urge to flinch, horrified it might cost her some blood and flesh. "Who are you?" Her voice strengthens once the threat against her neck diminishes.

"The man hired to kill you, my Lady."

But, he isn't killing her. Not yet, anyway.  _Why?_  she wonders to herself. Perhaps he wishes to toy with her before dealing the killing strike?

"I see I have your attention." His voice is thick against her neck. Warm. It sets her aflame. Muscles tense, but she trains them. The electric urge to run subsides. The frozen tendrils of fear melt. She is calm, like the setting sun over a sea.

"Indeed." The word falls from her lips like a command; the kind that sends men to their deaths.

"Do you know?" he asks, as if there is only one answer.

Her thoughts move at the speed of synaptic conduction. A blur fills her. Eyes. Breath. Mind. A right answer could save her. A wrong one? Death.

"Who hired you?" she belts out, immune to good sense.

If she's going to die, might as well know on whose order.

"Sir Mori Shōnan paid my price for tonight." Slowly, the silvery blade creeps down the slope of her neck, to her shoulder, where it lingers for a few tense seconds. Those tense seconds, however, are broken when the assassin grabs her by the face and forces her head to the side.

Hisana catches a glimpse of the man's black robes.

"But, I think you're worth more alive," he murmurs, breath hot against her neck.

Hisana quickly escapes his clutches and stands, naked and perfectly unafraid. "I demand you show me your face," she says, staring at him with a glare so fierce that it would strip most men of their hide.

Most men, that is, except this one.

He obliges her command and pulls off his hood. "Milady." He bends his head in a low, remorseful bow.

"Raise your head." Her voice is sharp, and it cuts through the humid air as swiftly as his dagger could cut through flesh.

He does as ordered and reveals his face. It is a face that she has never seen before. He is young, but grizzled. There is a world-weariness stare trapped in his eyes that instantly betrays him as hailing from one of the Rukon districts. Indeed, good noble boys do not grow up to become mercenaries. Street urchins, however,  _do_.

"Name your price," she says, pinning him with a look.

A wolfish grin splits his lips.

Suddenly, the thought of a fresh snowfall enters her mind. The way it drifts reminds her of the pressure. Maybe she will live to see her next winter. Maybe.

"A mercenary, then?"

The conclusion seems obvious at the moment. Why else would he stop? Another amount. Another deal. Another bid. His sword goes to the highest figure. Nothing more. Nothing less. Death is a business after all. No one knows it better than her.

He pulls the blade, and the metallic "tink" tells her that death has been sheathed.

For now.

Now is not the time for blood shed, she thinks to herself. Now is the time for  _negotiation_.

Stepping out of the soaking tub, she straightens her back, levels her shoulders, and reaches for her silk. A lady requires her modesty, after all, and she already has his attention.

Now all she needs is his contract.


End file.
